Okay, this whole situation was just…weird beyond description.
“…Rectify?” Tahl started, but then thought better of it. Unlike many of his adopted family, Tahl was literate – his mother had taught him how to read before she vanished when he was a child. But books weren’t exactly easy to come by outside of castle grounds, and his vocabulary had remained basically static, with a few additions gleaned from reading warrants and advertisements posted around the villages they visited. His expression was sullen as he mulled it over, guessing from context that he meant he wanted to…fix it? Implying, Tahl guessed, that he’d just waltz into the woods and catch something with his bare hands. Or with magic. Could he do that…?
Tahl didn’t want to think about it.
The stranger looked him over, and Tahl did the same, wondering what the hell he’d managed to get himself into. Whoever he was, he seemed awfully relaxed, for someone who appeared utterly defenseless. That should have been the kind of red flag that sent Tahl into a hasty retreat, but there was something about this encounter that made him…curious. Maybe it was the kinship of their magic, and that fact that this guy seemed perfectly at ease with his. Even if he was a little over-confident.
“How could you possibly know–” he began, scoffing a little at he followed the stranger’s gaze into the brush, but he was cut off by the owl’s strike, and the question hung unfinished from his open mouth. He closed it, cleared his throat. “That’s…” Unsettling? “…useful,” Tahl decided, turning back toward him with an expression of grudging respect. He scrubbed at the back of his neck with one hand, avoiding the necromancer’s eyes after a brief moment of eye contact. “So, you’re telling me I’m not going to die today – thanks, by the way – and, what? Offering to buy me dinner?” He made a disbelieving noise, shook his head. “I’m strange dinner company for the likes of you, but that seems to fit the theme of the day, I guess. Name’s Tahl.” He extended his hand for a shake, finally remembering to introduce himself, and hoping his new “friend” wouldn’t be too disgusted by the callouses and dirt that marked him as a commoner. “It’s nice of you to offer, but you don’t actually have to do this, you know.”
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